INDIA, POPULAR MUGHAL, PROBABLY BIKANER, CIRCA 1600-25

Details

A Leaf from a Bhagavata Purana Series: Brahma Kidnaps Cows and Herders
India, Popular Mughal, probably Bikaner, circa 1600-25
The four-headed god at far left holding a staff while chasing young cowherds and cows across a green meadow bordered by a lotus-filled riverbank, with flowering trees atop the hill and yellow sky with blue-gray clouds at top, reverse with verses in Devanagari and bearing Bikaner stamp
Image: 6¾ x 9¾ in. (17.1 x 24.8 cm.); folio: 9 5/8 x 11 7/8 in. (24.5 x 30.2 cm.)

Provenance

The Ehrenfeld Collection, sold at Sotheby's New York, 21 and 22 March, 1990, lot 10.

Literature

D. Ehnbom, Indian Miniatures, The Ehrenfield Collection, 1985, p. 52, cat. no. 17 illustrated

Exhibited

New York, The American Federation of Arts, Indian Miniatures from the Ehrenfeld Collection, Sept 1985-March 1988

Lot Essay

The painting depicts a conflict of supremacy betweem Brahma and Krishna. Brahma kidnaps Krishna's friends to test his reaction. Krishna assumes the missing cowherders identities for a year and the confounded Brahma acknowledges Krishna's greatness.

See also note to previous lot. This leaf is part of a dispersed Bhagavata Purana series originally belonging to the Rajasthani state of Bikaner. Other leaves can be found in the collections of J.P. Goenka, Mumbai; Suresh Neotia, Calcutta; Paul Walter, New York; and Edwin Binney 3rd, San Diego and numerous public and private collections.

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